Introduction
Forests and Forest Plants is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias.
Forests are an essential part of Earth's life support systems. Forest resources are essential for humankind. They provide both vital goods and services. They provide food, fuel, shelter, soil and water protection, and filter the air we breathe. This publication on Forest and Forest Plants provides the user with such information as to create an awareness of the value of our forestlands and the products and environmental services they provide.
The three volumes on Forests and Forest Plants are organized starting with first the necessity of : the World's Forest Resources – including classification and distribution of forest, urban forestry and agroforestry; Important Tree Species including trees in reclamation and arid zone forestry; Forests and Forest Products including wood and non word products; the Role of Forests in the Biosphere – preserving biological diversity, functions in the hydrological cycle, etc.; and Conservation and Breeding of Forest Trees – what is being done to improve our forest resources - silviculture, tree nurseries, and forest protection. The theme Forest and Forest Plants has led to the conclusion that there are substantial difficulties in matching environmental concerns and sustainability with an ever-increasing world population. Thus there is a tension between maximizing for food, wood and production on the one hand and implementing sustainable development and environmental protection on the other. These three volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers, NGOs and GOs.
Editor(s) Biography
John Owens is a retired professor and former Director of Forest Biology at the University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., and Canada. He now does consulting, research, and writing on forest tree reproduction, primarily dealing with north temperate conifers but also tropical conifers and hardwoods. He has published over 200 scientific papers, books, chapters, and proceedings in this and related fields over the last forty years.Dr. Owens received a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. from Oregon State University, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He served as an advisor in forest tree reproduction in Asia for the Canadian International Development Agency for nine years.
H. Gyde Lund currently runs a small international consulting firm, Forest Information Services, specializing in networking, web and library searches, literature synthesis, and report writing, as well as providing technical support for resource inventories and assessments. Mr. Lund worked for nearly forty years with the US Federal Government in the field of forest resource inventories and assessments. His last position with the USDA Forest Service was as the International Resource Assessment Liaison, providing technical backstopping to the USFS international forestry and research staffs in the fields of remote sensing, GIS, resource inventory, and monitoring. Mr. Lund served as an expert on numerous United Nations task forces dealing with land classification and global assessments. He has published nearly 200 papers and reports on resource inventory and assessment. Mr. Lund holds forestry degrees from Utah State University and the University of Washington. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters, and a member of the International Society of Tropical Foresters, the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, and the Global Association of On-Line Foresters
